Material distributing device



Dec. 6, 1955 c. B. SHEETS 2,726,079

MATERIAL DISTRIBUTING DEVICE Filed Feb. 15, 1952 2 Sheets-Sheet l Dec. 6, 1955 c. B. SHEETS 2,726,079

MATERIAL DISTRIBUTING DEVICE 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Feb. 15, 1952 United States Patent MATERIAL DISTRIBUTING DEVICE Cleo B. Sheets, Hammond, Ind., assignor to Inland Steel Company, a corporation of Delaware Application February 15, 1952, Serial No. 271,753

3 Claims. (Cl, 266 -21) This invention relates to a material distributing device and more particularly to such a device adapted to separate relatively fine and coarse material and distribute the separated material on a moving conveyor.

Steel mills often employ sintering mechanism to form ore into a porous clinker which can easily be smelted. The crushed ore is delivered from a crusher to a traveling grate. by suitable conveying apparatus. The traveling grate carries the crushed ore into an igniting furnace where a draft is pulled downwardly through the grate to burn out the unwanted constituents and form the clinker, generally referred to as a sinter.

Applicant has found that the quality of the sinter is improved markedly when the coarser material is distributed over the grates and the finer material is deposited on top of the coarser. This distribution pattern gives improved ignition, more uniform burning, better suction through the bed of ore and increased sinter production. These advantages are secured by the use of the device of this invention for distributing the crushed ore to the traveling grates.

A specific embodiment of the invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawings, in which:

Fig. l is a front elevational view partly in section showing the relative location of the material delivery spout, the distributing hopper and a pallet of the movable grate under the hopper; and Fig. 2 is a side elevational view of the device illustrated in Fig. 1 showing material being delivered onto the movable grate.

The sintering machines employ an ignition furnace which. may be fired with coke oven gas or other fuelto burn through the crushed ore carried on a movable grate through the furnace. A draft of air is pulled downwardly through the material to maintain the bed on fire and thus burn out a major portion of the unwanted material, leaving a porous clinker or sinter. This sinter is then taken to furnaces wherein it may be smelted to form a molten metal mass. The igniting furnace is not illustrated in the accompanying drawings as it forms no part of the present invention.

In the figures of the accompanying drawings, the movable grate, generally designated 10, comprises a number of hinged together sections or pallets 11 which have a bottom comprising a plurality of spaced members 12 with openings between them forming the grate upon which the material is to be delivered for transport into the igniting furnace. These pallets 11 are mounted upon casters or wheels 13 which run in an angle iron track 14 which is continuous through the furnace. A suitable foundation or support 16 is provided for the track 14. The pallets 11 are also continuous and are hingedly connected as at so that they form a continuous conveyor which gathers material from the distributing device, carries it through the furnace and then dumps the resultant sinter and returns again to the material distributing device.

The ore crushers (not shown) are usually located on a floor above the sintering machine and screened ore is delivered by'means of a spout 20 from a floor 21 above the floor of the building containing the sintering mechanism with the traveling grate 10. This spout is pivotally mounted at 22 by suitable trunnions so that it may distribute crushed ore over the width of a hopper, generally designated 30, and thus supply material for the total width of the pallets 11. The particular positioning of the spout 20 will be referred to hereinafter with relation to the hopper 30.

The hopper may be built of sheet metal and has a front wall 31 sloping downwardly and inwardly from an open top of the hopper. The rear wall 32 likewise slopes downwardly and inwardly and the lower edge 33 thereof extends downwardly to a level below the lower edge 34 of the front wall. End walls 35 and 36 join the front and rear walls to enclose the hopper. The bottom opening from the hopper is formed between the bottom edges 33 and 34 of the rear and front walls respectively and faces forwardly of the hopper, that is, the opening is faced toward the empty pallets 11 as they approach a position under the hopper. In Fig. 1 it will be noticed that the end walls 35 and 36 are slightly tapered so that the upper opening or top of the hopper is slightly wider than the bottom opening. The bottom opening, previously defined, is of a width substantially equal to the width of the pallets 11.

The screened ore delivered from the delivery spout 20 is a mixture of relatively coarse and fine material and ordinarily would be deposited by a hopper 30 on the pallets with the mixture intact or without substantially changing the proportions of the mixture at various levels on the pallets. In the present invention the coarser material is -deposited on the lower parts of the pallets directly on the grates and the finer material is disposed on top of the coarser. To accomplish this a wall 40 is placed within the hopper and herein comprises a substantially horizontal member 41, herein shown as a pipe, pivotally supported in slots 42 in the end walls 35 and 36 and having a plurality of finger elements 43 secured to the member 41 and extending downwardly therefrom to divide the hopper into separate compartments. The finger elements 43 are steel rods generally extending parallel and spaced apart a sufficient distance to permit the passage of fine material to the rear side of the hopper and retain coarser material on the front side thereof. The rods as used with finely screened iron ore have been found to give a proper distribution of coarser and finer material if the centers of the rods are spaced approximately one inch apart. This permits them to be of sufiicient weight, being of steel, to maintain an intermediate. position, that is, they will not be pushed against the rear wall 32-by the finely screened iron ore. The lower extremities of the finger elements extend below the bottom edge 34 of the front wall and terminate above the bottom edge 33 of the rear wall and, as shown, extend slightly through the opening defined by these edges. The finger elements themselves have lower portions 44 which are angularly disposed with relation to upper portions 45 as more specifically seen in Fig. 2. The lower portions 44 are given a slope in the general direction of the rear wall so as to guide material from the hopper toward the bottom opening therefrom. The fingers are pivotally supported so that they may vary their relative position between the front and rear walls to accommodate variations in the relative amounts of finer and coarser materials being delivered to the hopper.

As best illustrated in Fig. 2, the delivery end 23 of the spout 20 is positioned above the front wall 31 so as to deposit the material M against the front wall. By so positioning the spout 20, material M discharged therefrom will impinge on the front wall and will be deflected against the finger elements 43, thereby separating the coarser and finer material. The coarser material will flow downwardly by gravity in front of the fingers 43 and pass out the bottom opening in the area designated 37 and thus will fall to the pallets 11 ahead of the finer material whichmust pass out of the bottom opening behind the fingers 43 in the area designated 38, and thus the finer material will be deposited on top of the coarser. The delivery spout 20 being narrower than the hopper is swung on its pivot 22 to distribute material across the entire width of the hopper. The fingers, which extend across the entire hopper, insure that the coarser material will be deposited directly on the grate members 12 and the finer material deposited on top of the coarser.

Even though the hopper is practically the same width as the pallets 11, it may be desirable to avoid unevenness in the height of the crushed ore on the pallets so as to maintain a depth of material which is constant. A doctor blade 50 may be provided behind the hopper 30 to level the crushed ore to a constant depth.

While this invention is susceptible of embodiments in many different forms, there has been shown in the drawings and described in detail only one specific embodiment with the understanding that the present disclosure is to be considered as a simplification of the principles of the invention and is not intended to limit the invention to the embodiment illustrated. The scope of the invention will be pointed out in the appended claims.

I claim:

1. A device for distributing crushed ore to a movable sintering grate which carries the ore through an igniting furnace to form a sinter, comprising: an open bottom feed hopper disposed above the sintering grate, said hopper having a downwardly and inwardly sloping front wall; a plurality of finger elements extending downwardly below the bottom edge of the front wall and spaced therefrom; and a downwardly and inwardly sloping rear wall having a bottom edge located below the bottom edge of the front wall and spaced behind the finger elements said elements being freelyand pivotally secured at their upper ends for movement toward and away from said front and rear walls and being unconfined and unrestricted at their lower ends; a material delivery spout extending downwardly to discharge material against the front wall, the delivery end of the spout being spaced upwardly from said front wall so that ore may impinge upon the front wall and be deflected against the finger elements, said finger elements being respectively spaced from each other a predetermined distance to retain coarser ore on the front side of the hopper and pass finer ore to the rear side thereof and said sintering grate being movable from front to rear of the hopper whereby the coarser ore is deposited below the finer ore on the grate.

2. A device for distributing crushed ore to a movable sintering grate which carries the ore through an igniting furnace to form a sinter, comprising: an upwardly open feed hopper having downwardly and inwardly sloping front and rear walls joined by end walls, said front and rear walls having lower edges spaced apart to form a discharge opening at the bottom of the hopper; a dividing wall intermediate the front and rear walls of the hopper and having a substantially horizontal member pivotally supported in said end walls with a plurality of substantially parallel finger elements extending generally downwardly therefrom, said finger elements having their lower ends positioned at said discharge opening from the hopper and being spaced a predetermined distance apart, said horizontal member and finger elements being free of support other than said pivotal mounting; a swingable material delivery spout above and spaced from said front wall of the hopper, said spout being directed substantially downwardly so as to deliver material against the front wall so that material delivered against said front wall may be defiected against sid finger elements, sid finger elements being adapted to retain coarser material on the front side thereof and pass finer material to the rear side thereof, and said sintering grate being movable from front to rear of the hopper so that the coarser material may be deposited below the finer ore on the grate.

3. A devicefor distributing crushed ore to a movable sintering grate which carries the ore through an igniting furnace to form a sinter, comprising: a hopper having downwardly and inwardly sloping front and rear Walls with the rear wall extending below the lower lever of the front wall to form a bottom opening in the hopper facing frontwardly; end walls joining said front and rear walls and each having supporting means, capable of serving as journal means, in the upper portion of the end walls; a bar member supported only in said supporting means and extending between the end walls; a plurality of spaced parallel finger elements pivotally supported at their upper ends by said bar member and depending therefrom into the hopper and terminating adjacent said bottom opening, said fingers being spaced to pass relatively fine material while retaining relatively coarse mate rial; and a material delivery spout above the front wall for delivering crushed ore against the downwardly sloping front wall so that the ore will impinge on said front wall and be deflected against said finger elements whereby relatively coarse ore will be retained on the front side of the finger elements and be deposited upon the moving conveyor in advance of relatively fine ore.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 

